Quandary Settled

I was faced with a tough decision. If both Lisa and Oscar had survived this long in one small town like Hot Springs, while in the vicinity of the radiation from two reactors melting down, 50 and 100 miles away, how many others had survived this long in other parts of the country unaffected by strong radiation sources nearby? Knowing what I did about the danger in Hot Springs, I wanted to get Lisa away from there with our child. But I didn't know of any place truly free from the radiation now traveling around the globe in the jet streams from all of the hot sources spewing out fallout every day for who knows how long? No place would be truly safe from the ambient radiation in the air and falling out every time it rained.

       For now, all I could do was make sure that we brought in the crop and we had enough seeds to take with us for wherever we would end up when winter came again. With no other options, that seemed to be Palm Springs again. Hot Springs, as congenial as it was, didn't seem to be the safest place to be any length of time. To avoid exposure, we wore rubber gloves and rubber boots that we washed daily when working in the gardens, stayed out of the outdoors except for our chores and baths in the grotto, and generally, led a lifestyle indoors during a very hot time of the year. It wasn't fun anymore. Fans are not air-conditioning. We knew now that the food we were growing would be contaminated with radiation as well.

       The growing little capuchin joined us at the grotto every day and began to follow us as we left to his mother's loud complaints. She often came running and dragged him back. But eventually, when he turned on her and bit her, no longer dependent on her milk and protection, he became our constant companion, for some reason liking me over Lisa and often sitting on my shoulder so that he didn't have to walk. We named him Charlie in memory of my lost friend that Lisa only knew by my stories of him. Charlie became our constant companion and pet. He rattled the pigeons on the roof until he learned from my scolding that they were our friends and not to be chased. I began to swear that he knew English.

       I began to wonder how many more had survived three and half years since everything ended. There must have been more survivors somewhere. Probably on ships. Many ships, especially fishing ships, normally stayed out a year or more until they filled their quota of fish. And, since they caught fish, and could grow anything on the decks, could stay away from land and nuclear sources quite easily… Port on otherwise deserted islands to get fresh water and fruit. All the ports flooded and difficult for a ship to reach except floating platforms for refueling and offloading.

       But it was all a dream because I had no way to communicate with anyone with all of the communication infrastructure down and deteriorating.  The time for that was when I was on my mission to save Julia and Frank, and I didn't reach out then. Kicked myself now for not doing it. I also worried that I may have driven rapidly through towns and cities without taking the time to knock and see if anyone was home. Promised myself that I would take more time in the places that I passed to see if there were more Charlies, Oscars, and Lisas who, were looking for more companionship, just like me. Maybe restart civilization the right way? I could only hope so.

       But the chores at hand consumed us. I got busy smoking meat. Learned that I could make fairly good ham and bacon from the wild pigs that seemed to roam everywhere and multiply in these Arkansas hills. Those that were badly diseased, I avoided. But, for the most part, one and two-year-olds were quite healthy and made some of the best pork I had ever eaten. I also snared and shot turkeys. Smoked some of those. Lisa gathered up Mason jars from all over town and we canned berries, fruits, and vegetables. The rich new soil from the dust made the Idaho potatoes grow and by September we had stored them away in cellars that Oscar had shown us where good underground temperature maintained around 55° year-round. On really hot nights, we retreated to those places for relief.

       Lisa's morning sickness lasted only a short while and by mid-August she started showing. Parading her growing belly to me in the moonlight, dancing to some old tune on a cassette, CD or DVD, or even old vinyl… Devices that I found along with the music that would run off of our electricity.  We had enough food growing and hunted to feed a small community and life was good. It was a honeymoon of our own making. Hard work interspersed with the joy of just being the two of us. I wondered what bringing a child into this world would be like, but I had to face it. We had to start somewhere.

       By the end of August, most of the crops were in or ripening. Most required little maintenance and we were able to take little getaways to other communities of three or four days or more. The first trip took us to Texarkana, Shreveport, Monroe, Pine Bluff and then back to Hot Springs. We took every opportunity to drive into small communities looking for tracks, both from vehicles and from humans. We also looked for buildings that were intact, and especially ones with clean windows that would indicate occupants. As we drove around looking for signs of life, I would occasionally do a little, "Beep… Beep," on the airhorn to let people know that we were in the vicinity. It could be heard some distance. I got on the radio and tried to raise anyone as well. Even tried the frequencies on our military radios. All I ever got was static.

       I had found a handheld, battery-operated megaphone that Lisa would use to try to call anybody out. She would run down her window and stick the megaphone out calling, "Hello! Is there anybody here! We've got food and water. Anybody?" Generally, those loud pronouncements, even from a young woman, only scared birds and animals that were everywhere around any remaining derelict buildings. At times, the hollowness of her entreaties were very haunting. We would drive out of town to some idyllic overlook from the top of a mountain or by a stream or lake and just relax in the beauty of these lonely places rather than even talk about people that no longer seemed to be present anywhere at all.

       The next trip took in Little Rock, Conway, Branson, Springfield, Bentonville, Fayetteville, and Fort Smith again. We especially took time around Branson and Bentonville where we knew that many multimillionaires lived. Hopeful that they had holed up in the hills and would still be alive regardless of what happened. But once again, all was still. All was quiet. The leaves were turning on the young saplings, now from 2 to 4 feet tall, giving the autumn the kind of color that one would expect, blanketing the mountainsides in the distance even though the tall trees were mostly gone. New life was everywhere scurrying, getting ready for winter to come. Making the thought of winter even more lonely except for those critters.

       Time drifted toward November and we had to decide. We had two votes and Lisa's counted for two, so she won out. We would stay. With all of our harvest collected and stowed away, we spent the remainder of Indian Summer in the neighboring hills most afternoons or by one of the lakes, fishing for fun. We were leading a truly Adam and Eve existence, enriched by 21st-century technology that survived its people. Like I said before, life was good.

       I set about making a grinding wheel using a washing machine motor. We had gathered some wild grains in our travels and I ground them into a kind of enriched flour with a lot of bran content. Lisa started baking bread, cookies and cakes with it. By that time, all the grain that was found from the previous world was either rotting or full of weevils. The pigeons loved it though and especially, the bugs in it. We had plenty of eggs and pigeon breast to eat.

       For Thanksgiving, I snared a large tom turkey. With leftover bread, Lisa made dressing. We had sweet potatoes and beans and some cranberry sauce still good in cans. We were thankful for what we had and wished we had a way to share it with others. There had to be others. Didn't there?